Design and testing for a mobile air-to-ground messaging platform
There exists in the market an opportunity to improve communication between ground crews and crews aboard flights. Since Gogo was already providing connectivity for a number of major airlines, the business wanted to leverage that network to offer additional services.
Snapshot
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Conducted exploratory interviews with flight attendants from a number of different airlines.
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Led usability test of week-long mobile texting app.
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Mapped mental models for airline communication applications.
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Designed complex Axure prototypes of a ground crew messaging platform.
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Designed and prototyped search functionalities for desktop communications platform.
My Role
I assisted with generative research and design for the mobile application, and was the lead architect for the desktop application.
What was the problem?
Flight delays are often the result of poor communication between what’s happening in the air, and what’s going on on the ground. We saw an opportunity to leverage our network to improve communication and help airlines reduce turn times.
How did we solve it?
The work on this project started with the in-flight crews mobile messaging app. I worked with a senior user experience architect to interview over 15 flight attendants from a number of different airlines.
We synthesized data from those interviews, translated the data into themes, findings, and experience principles, then presented the findings as recommendations to the business leadership.
Mobile Usability Testing
While my colleague was responsible for the design of the iOS mobile portion of this application I was responsible for fleshing out the Android mobile experience and conducting usability tests on the mobile app. We recruited a team from within our organization to use the application as their sole means of communication for one work week. We identified problems in the design and categorized the issues on a scale in order to prioritize redesign of issues preventing users from completing certain tasks.
Desktop Ground Crew Application
As work was continuing on the inflight application, I began design and strategy work on the ground crews desktop application. While we were able to conduct extensive research on the needs of inflight crews, there were barriers to recruiting and observing ground crews. We worked with subject matter experts and industry experts who had knowledge of existing messaging platforms. I worked with these individuals to identify and map out common use cases for communications between air and ground crews.
Our hypothesis was that communications between crews were divided into one-on-one messages and group messages. To map out our hypothesis I developed mental models for those two types of messaging scenarios. These models helped to inform the first iteration of design for the ground crew messaging application.
Mobile App Design & Documentation
What was the result?
Towards the end of my engagement on this project, the business was in talks of market testing the application with a smaller airline partner. The project also took on new leadership within the organization, and I worked with the new product owner during the transition to inform the strategy going forward.
What would I do differently?
This was the type of project where a lot was out of my hands. In those situations, I think it’s important to know how you can provide the greatest impact with the responsibilities you’ve been given. If I could approach this project again, I would take a different approach in recruiting users. I would have interviewed call center associates from other industries and generated a more general concept model and mental model map for work of that nature.
Because the business hadn’t developed a partnership with an airline at the offset, we had to work off a hypothesis. I think even a slightly informed hypothesis based on real user interviews would have been better than a hypothesis based on subject matter expert interviews.